


You Look Like Shit

by April_Valentine



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Established Relationship, M/M, Missing Scene, season 8 episode 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:24:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/April_Valentine/pseuds/April_Valentine
Summary: Just a little "scene we didn't see" from last night's episode, "Some Guy" after Daryl and Rick wreak their own brand of havoc on the fleeing saviors with the big guns.





	You Look Like Shit

**Author's Note:**

> After tonight's episode, so full of angst and shock and grief, punctuated by one spectacular scene with our favorite two man wrecking crew bringing down the baddies, I just had to write.
> 
> Unbetaed. Shamelessly sentimental.

“You Look Like Shit”

Rick took a breath while the words Daryl had just uttered sank in. He glanced down at himself, taking in his grass-stained shirt and the inevitable blood on his clothes and hands. He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, noting the dusty dirt that was covering him since his crawl back up the incline he’d had to make when the jeep had rolled down it. 

Then he looked back over at Daryl.

Messy hair in his face, leather jacket covered in dirt, muddy boots… grim expression.

“ _I_ look like shit?” Rick asked incredulously.

Daryl glance back at him, met his eyes, squinting against the setting sun. “Sure do.”

“And you look exactly like you always do, day in and day out,” Rick pronounced.

“Yep.”

“Well, you look like shit all the time then,” Rick offered, sounding righteous and pleased with his conclusion. 

“Never said I didn’t,” the gruff voice of his partner agreed. 

Their eyes met and Rick broke into a grin. Daryl smiled too, that crooked, half bashful, half cocky smirk that Rick loved to see. He leaned toward Daryl, nudging his shoulder against the other man’s. 

Daryl ducked his head sheepishly. 

“Pretty fancy shooting you did,” Rick told his companion.

“Pfft.” Daryl shrugged off the praise, but when he looked at Rick, his eyes were shining with something like awe. “You were like Indiana Grimes, jumpin’ from your jeep into his.” The way Daryl said it, Rick felt like he’d done something pretty heroic.

“You okay?” Rick asked, sobering. “You took a spill back there.” He wanted to see for himself, to have Daryl take off his jacket so he could check him for scrapes and bruises. But he had to content himself with running a careful hand from Daryl’s shoulder down along his arm.

Daryl only flinched slightly. “’M fine,” he husked. “Leather’s heavy. Does its job.” 

“I know, but…” Rick couldn’t help the concern that washed over him. It had been like that all day, the two of them fighting side by side as they had so many times, coming up against individuals that wanted to kill them and would have, if not for Daryl.

A couple of times, with Morales and with that lone Savior, Todd, Rick had been shocked by Daryl’s actions. But he couldn’t think of a single other person he’d rather have back him up than his brave brother in arms. Who but Daryl could put a crossbow bolt in the neck of a man who had his gun pointed at Rick’s head, old friend or not? Who but Daryl could pick himself up off the pavement and catch up to take out a guy shooting at Rick from the back of an speeding vehicle? 

Rick would have been dead twice just today without Daryl, dead a dozen times in the last year, maybe a hundred since they’d met. 

Today they’d done their Butch and Sundance routine again out on this road, much like the time they’d first met Jesus, but for much higher stakes. Rick wanted to go home, shower and have a beer, laugh and tell everybody how he and Daryl had managed to capture the guns – if in some fantasy world there were still cold beers and time to savor their victory with all their friends and family around them.

He wanted to take Daryl home, shower with him and make sure he wasn’t bruised or cut too badly from the fall from his motorcycle, hold him in their darkened room with the curtains open to let in the moonlight and make tender love to him until dawn. 

He wanted them to go home, shower and reminisce about the war and how they’d won it, tell the kids once again how their dads had fought the good fight to make their world as safe and secure as they could…

But the war wasn’t over. It was just beginning. The long day of battle wasn’t finished. Rick had no idea how the other groups were faring, but he knew Alexandria had suffered too many losses already. He couldn’t even guess how many would be still alive to return to Hilltop and the Kingdom when this day’s sun had set.

“You hurt?” Daryl asked him, eyes raking over Rick’s form. “When ya rolled down that hill?”

Rick met his gaze in surprise.

“Yeah, okay,” Daryl said with a shrug. “I w’s worried.”

“I’m all right,” Rick said, touched by the solicitous question. “Ridin’ so high on adrenaline, I hardly felt it.”

Daryl nodded, obviously knowing exactly what Rick meant.

He looked at Daryl. Daryl looked at him. 

They were standing on the side of a road in rural Virginia, with at least one guy that was recently dead half a mile back and one that may or may not be dead a few yards away. 

Still, except for them, Rick and Daryl were alone right now.

Rick looked at Daryl. Daryl looked at Rick.

Daryl was never one to appreciate open displays of public affection, Rick knew. But they weren’t really out in _public_ at the moment. 

Daryl usually preferred their intimacies to take place in the dark of night. 

It was nearing sunset, Rick thought, meaning darkness wasn’t far off.

And considering what was going on, who they were fighting, they might not make it home tonight, might die in the next five minutes.

Rick looked at Daryl.

Shaking the hair back off his face so he could see Rick more clearly, Daryl met his eyes.

And what Rick saw there told him making the move he was contemplating was the right thing to do. It was okay that they were out in the open in broad daylight, that they weren’t hidden away in the privacy of their bedroom. It mattered that they might run out of time, or be too battered and bruised when they did make it home that they wouldn’t be able to care for each other the way they wanted to.

Rick reached out, Daryl moved toward him. Rick brought his hand up to Daryl’s face, smoothing his palm over his cheek and leaning closer. He kept his eyes locked with Daryl’s, their gaze so knowing, so full of trust. 

They never needed many words, never needed to decide how they were going to do things – they just did them, instinctively knowing they would follow each other’s lead, anticipating one another’s moves, acting as one, their bond like mental telepathy, like the strongest of cables tightening between them.

It pulled them together now.

Rick tilted his head, Daryl leaned closer. Their lips met.

Right there, right on that deserted back road in rural Virginia, with two possible walkers mere feet away, with killers seeking them, with responsibilities and people counting on them, they took a moment, took their time and kissed each other. Lovingly. Deeply. Repeatedly.

 _Maybe I do look like shit,_ the thought flitted through Rick’s mind, _but so do you and this is who we are and we’re the best thing in each other’s lives. It might not last forever, or very long, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything._ Then Rick stopped thinking, and put everything he had into kissing Daryl senseless, before anything else could happen.


End file.
